Lithuanian Jewry

The book opens with the author's vivid description of her life in a traditional family in Lithuania in the 1920s and 1930s, her studies at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Kovno, and the dramatic turn in Gitta’s life as a result of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940. Only a few days before the first gruesome massacres of the Lithuanian Jews, Gitta and her family are expelled from their home by the Soviets. Although they escape the claws of the murderous Nazis and Lithuanians, their destiny takes them to the terrifying banks of the Arctic Ocean.

Gitta’s account of life in Siberia is an extraordinary description of her confrontation with the brutal climate and the flinty Soviet authorities -- but also of an establishment of a Jewish community which, with enormous effort, attempted to reconstruct the spiritual-communal life it had known in Lithuania. The kingpins of this new Jewish community were Gitta’s father and the mother of her future husband, who taught the youth Hebrew, organized daily prayers, constructed Jewish calendars and initiated other activities.

Sixteen years later, following the long-awaited release from Siberian exile, the author and her husband (my father) in Vilna attempt to gain permission to immigrate to Israel. When their struggle runs into a brick wall, they express their longing for the Jewish homeland by naming their children with Jewish names and teaching them the Hebrew language openly. After thirteen years of tedious efforts, their stubborn struggle succeeds in triumph. The book ends with their landing in the Promised Land.

As the editor of this work, I have added to the memoirs a research wrapping of relevant footnotes and a professional article at the appendix dealing with the deportation of the Lithuanian Jews, based on NKVD documents that I uncovered at the special archives in Vilna. This extensive research material complements the author's memoirs from a scientific perspective and reveals for readers and researchers quite a fascinating piece of Jewish history that has disappeared until now into the shadow of Holocaust stories.

Recent years have seen the flourishing of research on Lithuanian Kabbalists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the point that some scholars speak of a defined and delineated stream of Kabbalah, a school unto itself dubbed "Lithuanian Kabbalah." Such scholars include within this stream all those who saw the Vilna Gaon as their teacher in Kabbalah (parallel to the position of the Baal Shem Tov in Hasidism) and they ascribe to it such fixed categories as its "Articles of Faith." In their conception, this stream was part and parcel of the broader and well-known nationalist-messianic current that had its source, supposedly, in the Vilna Gaon himself; this current reached its full fruition in the twentieth century, and so too has the smaller stream within it, now a clearly defined "school," developed in various ways until the present. As if this were not enough, scholars have joined the later ideological trend which seeks to revise the history of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a decidedly messianic way, presenting it in a continuous line from the Vilna Gaon to the emergence of Zionism and then to the founding of the State of Israel. Again, the Vilna Gaon is not merely presented as a "herald" of Zionism but as one who encoded within his Torah the secret of redemption, the beginning of which, apparently, we are witnessing today. The article conducts a critical analysis of the concept of "Lithuanian Kabbalah," and uses as its case study the life and teachings of Rabbi Shimon Tsvi Horowitz.


בשנים האחרונות צומח ועולה מחקר סביב למקובלים בני ליטא במאות התשע עשרה והעשרים, עד שיש כאלו המדברים על זרם מוגדר ומובחן, אסכולה בפני עצמה, המכונה 'קבלה ליטאית'. בתוך זרם זה כוללים את כל אלו שראו בגר"א את מורם בקבלה, כמעין בעש"ט לחסידות, ומונים קטגוריות מקובעות של 'עיקרי אמונה' של אותו זרם הרוכב על מהלך משיחי ולאומי ידוע שמקורו כביכול בגר"א עצמו והגיע לגמר בישולו במאה העשרים. עד שנוצר בעיני כמה חוקרים מעין 'חוג' ברור ומוגדר שמתגלגל באופנים שונים עד לימינו. אם לא די בכך, הרי שהמדברים על אותו זרם קבלי רוכבים למעשה על קו אידיאולוגי מאוחר שבא לפרש מחדש את ההיסטוריה של היישוב היהודי בארץ ישראל במאה התשע עשרה ברוח משיחית וליצור מעין המשכיות מימי הגר"א עד להופעתה של הציונות ולמאורעות שהתרחשו עם הקמת מדינת ישראל. שוב אין הגר"א מצטייר רק כ'מבשר' הציונות אלא כמי שצפן בתורתו את סוד הגאולה שאנו עומדים לכאורה בפתחה. המאמר עוסק בניתוח ביקורתי של המשוג "קבלת ליטאית" וכמקרה מבחן יש כאן דיון בדרכו של ר' שמעון צבי הורביץ

אחת מהקהילות המרכזיות ב"יישוב הישן", זו שגם חידשה את הישוב האשכנזי בירושלים בראשית המאה ה-19, היא קהילת ה"פרושים".
להבנתי, לא ניתן עד כה הסבר מספק ומלא למקורו של שמה של הקהילה ומשמעותו. מאמר זה בא לבסס את ההסבר לפיו האידאל של "תורתו אומנותו" הוא זה שבא שם הקהילה לבטא ולהעמיד בראש.
(יוני 2019)

'"אינו שייך לי כי איני עוסק בזה": יחסו של ר' ישראל סלנטר לקבלה', מארן ניהוף ואח' (עורכים),  וזאת ליהודה – קובץ מאמרים המוקדש לחברנו, פרופסור יהודה ליבס, לרגל יום הולדתו הששים וחמישה, הוצאת מוסד ביאליק והמכון למדעי היהדות באוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, ירושלים תשע"ב, עמ' 439-420.

In contrast to twentieth-century Holocaust Denial, the most recent assault on the narrative of the genocide of European Jewry has emanated from a sophisticated revisionist model known as Double Genocide, codified in the 2008 Prague Declaration. Positing ‘equality' of Nazi and Soviet crimes, the paradigm’s corollaries sometimes include attempts to rehabilitate perpetrators and discredit survivors. Emanating from pro-Western governments and elites in Eastern Europe in countries with records of high collaboration, the movement has reached out widely to the Holocaust Studies establishment as well as Jewish institutions. It occasionally enjoys the political support of major Western countries in the context of East-West politics, or in the case of Israel, attempts to garner (eastern) European Union support. The empirical effects to date have included demonstrable impact on museums, memorials and exhibits in Eastern Europe and beyond.

In this article, I examine the entry of values perceived to be secular into Ultra-Orthodox Jewish thought. These values are introduced in an unconscious manner, and thus may be traced only in light of the subsequent changes that occur in Ultra-Orthodox thinking itself. I examine this subject through the work of Rabbi Avigdor Miller on the concept of the body.
Rabbi Miller, one of the twentieth century’s most important spiritual
mentors in the United States, was chosen because of the perceptible change in his thinking in the latter half of his teaching career, when we find external (i.e., “secular”) values playing an increasingly central role. This led Rabbi Miller to alternative readings of classical Jewish concepts, and even to a call for significant changes in the manner of living a worthy Jewish life.

The Golden Age of the Lithuanian Yeshivas tells the story of the last chapter of Jewish rabbinical schools in Eastern Europe, from the eve of the World War I to the outbreak of World War II.

The Lithuanian yeshiva established a rigorous standard for religious education in the early 1800s that persisted for over a century and continues to this day. Although dramatically reduced and forced into exile in Russia and Ukraine during WWI, the yeshivas survived the war. Moreover, they soon began to expand into areas now empty of yeshivas in lands occupied by Hasidic populations in Poland and even into the lands that would soon become Israel.

During the economic depression of the 1930s, students struggled for food and their leaders journeyed abroad in search for funding, but their determination and commitment to the yeshiva system continued. Despite the material difficulties, there was consistently a full occupancy of students, most of them in their twenties. Young men from all over the free world joined these yeshivas, which were considered the best training programs for religious professions and rabbinical ordination. The outbreak of WWII and the Soviet occupation of first eastern Poland and then Lithuania marked the beginning of the end of the Yeshivas, however, and the Holocaust ensured the final destruction of the venerable institution.

The Golden Age of the Lithuanian Yeshivas is the first book-length work on the modern history of the Lithuanian yeshivas published in English. Through exhaustive historical research of every yeshiva, the book brings to light for the first time the stories, lives, and inner workings of this long-lost world.

למרות שאיננה מוכרת במיוחד בציבור הרחב, תנועת המוסר היא אחת התנועות החשובות ביותר שהתפתחו באורתודוקסיה היהודית במזרח אירופה. היא הציבה את טיפוח ה'יראה', כלומר תיקון המידות ועיצוב האישיות לצד הערך של לימוד התורה. מורי התנועה הורו לעקור את המידות הרעות - הגאווה, הכעס, הקנאה, התאווה, העצלות ודומיהן - ולטעת במקומן מידות טובות: ענווה, סבלנות, 'עין טובה', הסתפקות במועט, זריזות וכיוצא בהן, וכל זאת בעזרת ספרי המוסר הקלסיים של המסורת היהודית. על אף הבסיס הרעיוני המשותף, הלכה התנועה והתגוונה ככל שרכשה אחיזה והשפעה בישיבות ליטא, ופיתחה זרמים שונים בעלי דגשים שונים - החל מזרם נובהרדוק הרדיקלי, בעל הדימוי ה"בוהמי", שחינך לחשד-עצמי פסימיסטי ולביזוי העולם הזה, וכלה בזרם סלובודקה בעל הדימוי ה"בורגני", שטיפח אופטימיות ומתינות הליכות. ספר זה הוא החיבור הראשון הבוחן את הגותם של אישי התנועה לכל אורך תולדותיה - מראשיתה בליטא של אמצע המאה ה-19 ועד לישראל של תחילת המאה ה-21, תוך עמידה על הרלוונטיות של השאלות שהעסיקו אותם לשיח הרעיוני הרחב יותר של ההגות היהודית.

מבוסס על סדרת הרצאות שניתנה בגלי צה"ל:
https://he.player.fm/series/series-1869379

Holocaust mass grave sites in eastern Europe can be difficult to investigate due to a paucity of historical documentation relating to the events and because using traditional invasive archaeology methods raises concerns around the disturbance of the remains of Jewish people. When combined with other lines of evidence, including historic photos and eyewitness testimony, non-invasive geophysical methods help to effectively identify and demarcate buried features at Holocaust sites, limiting unnecessary excavations. Between 1941 and 1944, as many as 100,000 people were murdered at the Ponary (Paneriai) extermination site in Lithuania, but many critical details of the site layout during this period are still to be resolved, including the location of some of the mass graves and confirmation of an escape tunnel that was used by slave labourers to escape captivity and certain death at the site. In this study, we show how a combination of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) profiling, limited ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data, and bare-earth elevation data (from a light and distance ranging (LiDAR) dataset) were used to confirm the location of a large unmarked mass grave with a diameter of ~25 metres and depth of ~4 metres. Additional ERT profiling at a second location imaged the entrance to an escape tunnel previously uncovered by an archaeological excavation in 2004, and detected a ~5 metre section of the continuation of the tunnel, approximately 33 metres away from the tunnel entrance. The geophysical results are supported by evidence from limited archaeological excavations, historical photographs, eyewitness descriptions of the site layout, and testimonies from the few survivors who managed to escape Ponary.

The paper discusses the features of witch-hunts in the ethnically and religiously diverse society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The sources demonstrate the involvement of some Christian (German, Russian) and non-Christian (Jewish, Tatar) minority groups in witch accusations in different roles: as accusers, defendants or suspects. The specifics of their involvement originate from their social and economic roles as well as from their cultural traits. The article attempts to explore the reasons for the accusations, the variety of beliefs about witchcraft and strategies to counter it as well as the way they reflected relations between the mentioned aliens and the surrounding majority.

*The article was written and submitted in 2018, later the author has essentially revised, supplemented and extended the issue in his PhD dissertation

The Ponar-Paneriai base, the main extermination site of Vilna-Vilnius, began its existence as a Red Army fuel depot in 1940. After Nazi occupation of the city in 1941the Einsatzgruppen and mostly Lithuanian members of the Ypatingasis burys used the pits dug for the fuel tanks for the murder of the Jews of Vilna and large numbers of Polish residents. During its operation, Ponar was cordoned of, but changes to the topography of the site since the Second World War have made a full understanding of the site difficult. This article uses contemporary plans and aerial photographs to reconstruct the layout of the site, in order to better understand the process of extermination, the size of the Ponar base and how the site was gradually reduced in size after 1944.

https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/journals/hrv/6/1/hrv.6.issue-1.xml

ר' ישראל משקלוב, מתלמידי הגר"א וממנהיגי כולל הפרושים בארץ-ישראל, ערך בזקנותו רשימה של שד"רים שהעלו עמם לא"י את כספי התרומות שיועדו לכולל הפרושים בא"י בין השנים תקע"ה-תקצ"ב (1832-1815). ביניהם הוא מזכיר את "הרב ר' שמואל הרב מעיר קמון" - מאמר זה בא לברר את זהותו ופועלו של ר' שמואל זה.
במאמר מתברר שר"ש היה דמות רבנית נכבדת, כשכבר סמוך לעלייתו שותף להנהגת קהילת הפרושים בצפת, בראשה עמד ר' ישראל משקלוב.

עוד אודותיו ברשומה https://haprushim.blogspot.com/2020/04/blog-post.html

Rabbi David Miller’s seforim — once among the most widely circulated English-language Jewish works — have long been relegated to the dusty shelves of used bookstores and genizah piles though the inspiring story of his quest to combat American Jewish apathy still speaks volumes.

A far-right East European grouping within the European Parliament and EU more generally continues to obtain EU funding for the "Double Genocide" inspired revisionism of Holocaust history. This segment relates to the latest episode of a sponsored competition that has entangled a Holocaust remembrance organization for the desired legitimization. Like ALL my items on Academia.edu, it is available by LINK, not downloaded: https://gianalytics.org/992-when-the-eu-finances-far-right-holocaust-revisionism